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The British constitutionand monarchy

What is a ‘constitution’?For any state to achieve a sense of order and identity, it requires a shared set

of values to be recognized and accepted by its subjects. Such values tend to be

instilled by a system of fundamental laws and principles, and upheld by parlia-

ments, courts, and other institutions established to maintain and reinforce them.

This notion of shared membership, of collective rights and responsibili-

ties—as common to commercial companies and supranational organizations

such as the European Union (EU) as to organs of any individual govern-

ment—is known as a ‘constitution’.

Constitutions come in all shapes, sizes, and formats. They can be formal

or informal, long or short, absolute or merely advisory. Most signifi cant,

though, is the difference between the two broad types of constitution ad-

opted by individual states: written and unwritten. Of course, for any set of

ideas related to one’s citizenship of a state to be communicated and sus-

tained effectively, some kind of written record will need to exist. Yet there

is an important distinction between constitutions described as ‘written’ and

ones that are not. All constitutions of any worth comprise elements that

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have been written in a literal sense—for example, laws or decrees laid down

in documentary form. But this does not make them ‘written constitutions’

per se. Written constitutions are, rather, codifi ed frameworks: single man-

uscripts summarizing the rights, values, and responsibilities attached to

membership of the states to which they relate.

For historical reasons, some states have adopted written constitutions while

others have not. Although this is not universally the case, written constitutions

have tended to emerge in countries where there has been a sudden change in

the entire system of government caused by a political upheaval such as a war,

invasion, or revolution. This was certainly the case for two of the nations with

whom the term is perhaps most closely associated: France and the USA.

France’s constitution derives from the Declaration of the Rights of Man

and of the Citizen, adopted on 26 August 1789 by the National Constituent

Assembly convened in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and later

amended to enshrine the three abiding principles of ‘liberty, equality, and

fraternity’. The USA adopted its equivalent a decade after declaring inde-

pendence from Britain, on 17 September 1787, at a landmark constitutional

convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, addressed by the Enlightenment

philosopher Benjamin Franklin.

The origins and sources of the British constitutionBritain—or more accurately the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland’—is a different case entirely. The story of the UK’s consti-

tutional evolution is of, fi rst, the gradual unifi cation of disparate kingdoms

under one national sovereign (monarch), then, in due course, the struggle

for supremacy between the sovereign and the Christian Church, and ulti-

mately between the sovereign and Parliament.

As these various power struggles have been played out, at several points

in its history the UK has come close to adopting a formal framework specify-

ing the rights and responsibilities of its citizenry, but, up to now, has stopped

short of producing a defi nitive statement. Despite the fact that documents

of one kind or another form a huge part of the constitutional framework

governing the lives of its citizens, there exists no single statement of prin-

ciples. Therefore, in defi ance of campaigns by all manner of individuals

and pressure groups—from the Chartists of 1848, to the coalition of liberal

thinkers who put their names to Charter 88 a century and a half later—to all

intents and purposes, Britain still has an unwritten constitution.

As such, the British constitution has clear advantages: it is fl exible enough to

be amended, added to, or subtracted from according to the will of the elected


The British constitution and monarchy 7

Parliament of the day, without any of the tortuous procedures required in

the USA and elsewhere whenever the slightest break with tradition is sought

in the interests of political progress. Conversely, it has the disadvantage of

provoking as much wrangling among lawyers, politicians, and historians as

it can ever claim to circumvent, by leaving substantial layers of ambiguity

around sometimes crucial issues relating to its subjects’ liberties. The re-

cent controversy about Gordon Brown’s decision to sign the EU’s 2007 Lisbon

Treaty—seen by some as a ‘European constitution’ in all but name—is only

one example of how easily the UK can adopt potentially signifi cant changes

to its constitutional fabric without any of the debate rendered necessary by

the rigid rule systems of other countries. Meanwhile, the perceived assault on

individuals’ civil liberties represented by the raft of ‘Big Brother’ anti-terror

legislation since the attacks on the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001, not to

mention the proposed introduction of identity cards and a national DNA data-

base, is viewed by human rights campaigners as an example of the dangers of

failing to enshrine core principles in a solid constitutional statement.

So what are the primary sources of the UK’s constitution? The constituent

components are probably best split into the following fi ve broad categories:

• statute—that is, individual laws, known as ‘Acts of Parliament’;

• common law—sometimes known as ‘judge-made’, or ‘case’ law;

• conventions—that is, customs, traditions, and long-standing

practices;

• treatises—historical works of legal and/or constitutional authority;

• treaties—that is, EU and other international agreements.

Statute

Magna Carta (the Great Charter), signed by King John in 1215, is often cited

as the foundation stone of Britain’s constitution, invoking as it does the prin-

ciple of rule of law. This embodied the inalienable right of any citizen accused

of a criminal offence to a free and fair trial before their peers and, crucially,

enshrined the principle that no one—not even the reigning sovereign—is

‘above the law’. Of course, the idea that not even the sovereign is immune

to prosecution is (like many constitutional concepts in the UK) largely a no-

tional one. In practice, because most criminal prosecutions are instigated in

the name of the Crown, if the king or queen were to be accused of a crime and

brought before a court of law, this would provoke a constitutional crisis.

Perhaps more signifi cant even than Magna Carta was the 1689 Bill of

Rights, passed in the wake of the extraordinarily turbulent period stemming



from the execution forty years earlier of the Anglican King Charles I, and

the 11-year ‘interregnum’ that followed under his vanquisher, the Puritan

‘Lord Protector’ Oliver Cromwell. Although titular head of the Church of

England, Charles was felt by many to be too sympathetic to Roman Cath-

olicism, having married the Catholic princess Henrietta Maria of France.

There was also deep unease about his invocation of the loose constitutional

principle (popular among medieval monarchs) known as the ‘Divine Right of

Kings’—a notion that the authority of the sovereign derived from his or her

relationship to God and was thus immutable. In the event, the Parliamentar-

ians secured victory over Charles’s Royalist supporters in the ensuing Eng-

lish Civil War (1642–51), ending centuries of rule under this premise.

The Bill of Rights itself arose out of the alliance between the Protestant-

dominated Parliament and William of Orange, the Dutch king whom it helped

to depose Charles’s younger son, James II, during the ‘Glorious Revolution’

of 1688. Having worked in an uneasy stalemate with James’s elder brother,

Charles II, after his return from exile in France following Cromwell’s death

in 1660, Parliament used the ascension of his uncompromising sibling (a de-

vout Catholic) as a pretext to cement its newly asserted authority as the

supreme seat of power in Britain.

To this end, it identifi ed James’s Protestant daughter, Mary, as the rightful

heir to the throne, prompting her father’s fl ight to France. Together with her

husband, William, Mary effectively deposed James as monarch. In exchange

for Parliament’s loyalty to the couple, they permitted the passage of the Bill,

which formalized for the fi rst time the transfer of constitutional supremacy

from Crown to elected Parliament. Its central tenet was to ratify the princi-

ple that the sovereign could only in future rule through Parliament—rather

than tell it what to do, as in the past. In other words, monarchs would hence-

forth have to seek the offi cial consent of members of Parliament (MPs)—and,

more particularly, government ministers—before passing legislation (Acts),

declaring war, or invoking any of the other sovereign powers that they had

traditionally wielded. In this way, the Bill effectively ended centuries of

‘royal sovereignty’ and ushered in the concept (even today a fundamental

cornerstone of Britain’s democracy) of parliamentary sovereignty.

This core constitutional principle is the one that, above all others, most

symbolizes the oft-cited fl exibility of an unwritten constitution. The term

‘sovereignty’—also known as political sovereignty—refers to the notion of

an individual or institution exercising supreme control over an area, people,

or themselves. The concept of parliamentary sovereignty fl ows from this: as

well as asserting the hegemony of the institution of Parliament over British



subjects, it confers on each individual UK Parliament—that is, the body of

MPs elected at a given general election—the authority to make its own laws

and potentially to repeal any of those passed by previous Parliaments. To

this extent, it prevents any one Parliament being ‘bound by the actions of a

predecessor’.

Many constitutional experts argue that this idea is incompatible with that

of a conventional written constitution because, if we had such a document,

one Parliament could theoretically use its sovereignty simply to repeal the

Act that introduced it. Advocates of a codifi ed document say that this is a

bogus argument, arguing that many countries with written constitutions

manage to maintain them alongside their own versions of parliamentary

sovereignty without encountering such confl icts. One way of embedding

written constitutions into the political fabric of a state is to compose them

out of webs of interlocking legislation, rather than a single Act—making

them harder to repeal. Another might be to set up an independent superior

court with the power to adjudicate in constitutional disputes. A new US-style

‘Supreme Court’ along these lines was due to come into effect in Britain in

2009 (see pp. 20–21).

In addition to formalizing the notion of parliamentary sovereignty, the Bill

of Rights granted a number of specifi c entitlements to all ‘Englishmen’—with

the exception, in certain cases, of Roman Catholics. Its main tenets are listed

in Table 1.1.

The Bill also specifi ed conditions governing the future succession of the

monarchy, in light of the coronation of William and Mary over the dethroned

James II:

• the fl ight of James from England was defi ned as an ‘abdication’;

• William and Mary were offi cially declared the successors of James;

• after them, the throne should pass to Mary’s heirs, then her sister,

Princess Anne of Denmark, and her heirs, then to heirs of William by

later marriage.

Finally, the Bill also introduced a further constitutional principle that is fun-

damental to the working of the British Parliament. Often incorrectly de-

scribed as a ‘convention’ (rather than as a product of statute, which it is),

this is the notion of parliamentary privilege. In brief, parliamentary privi-

lege enables any elected MP sitting in the House of Commons or peer in the

House of Lords to make accusations about individuals or companies in open

debate in the chambers without fear of prosecution for defamation.



In recent years, there have been several high-profi le examples of the

use of parliamentary privilege by members to ‘name and shame’ private

individuals in ways that would be considered defamatory (and might invite

legal action) if they were to be repeated outside Parliament. In 2000, Peter

Hain (then Foreign Offi ce Minister for Africa) invoked parliamentary privi-

lege to identify brothers Maurice and David Zollman as the owners of an An-

twerp diamond trading business that he said was breaking United Nations

(UN) sanctions by helping to bankroll the civil war in Angola. A year later,

Peter Robinson (then deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party) used

it to ‘out’ Brian Keenan and Brian Gillen as members of the Provisional Irish

Republican Army (IRA) ruling army council.

A fl ipside of the legal protection afforded by parliamentary privilege is the

fact that certain words and phrases are construed as ‘unparliamentary lan-

guage’ and therefore unacceptable if directed at fellow members in either

the Commons or Lords chambers. Most notorious is the word ‘liar’, which is

seen to confl ict constitutionally with the freedom given to members under

parliamentary privilege to speak their minds. In November 1993, the Rev-

erend Ian Paisley (then leader of the Democratic Unionists) was suspended

from the Commons for fi ve days for accusing then Prime Minister John

Major of lying after it emerged that, despite previously insisting that the

Freedoms for all ‘Englishmen’ Sanctions for Roman Catholics

Freedom from royal interference with the law—sovereigns were forbidden from establishing their own courts, or acting as judge themselves

A ban on Catholics succeeding to the English throne—refl ecting the supposed fact that ‘it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist prince’

Freedom from being taxed without theagreement of Parliament

An obligation on newly crownedsovereigns to swear oaths of allegiance to the Church of England

Freedom to petition the monarch

Freedom for Protestants only to possess ‘arms for defence’

Bar on carrying weapons

Freedom from drafting into a peacetime army without Parliament’s consent

Freedom to elect MPs withoutinterference from the sovereign

Freedom from cruel and unusualpunishments, and from excessive bail

Freedom from fi nes and forfeitureswithout trial

Table 1.1 Main entitlements listed in the Bill of Rights 1689



idea of negotiating with Northern Irish Republicans (whom he dubbed ‘ter-

rorists’) would ‘turn his stomach’, he’d actually been holding secret talks for

more than a year with Sinn Féin, the main Republican party.

Just as parliamentary privilege gives protection from being sued through

the courts to MPs or peers who make defamatory statements in Parliament,

it also protects the media and public from action arising out of repeating

those claims. By way of further complicating explanations of this privilege,

however, according to a literal interpretation of the Bill of Rights, it also pro-

tects the press from proceedings arising from a report alleging wrongdoing

in Parliament by an MP. This contentious legal argument was used to enable

The Guardian to defend a libel action brought in 1996 by former Conserva-

tive minister Neil Hamilton over its allegations two years earlier that he had

accepted cash from Mohamed Al Fayed for asking parliamentary questions

designed to further the Harrods owner’s business interests. To muddy the

constitutional waters further, as a sitting MP, Mr Hamilton had to obtain

formal permission to sue the newspaper in the fi rst place. In the event, a

new clause was inserted into the 1996 Defamation Act (s. 13) enabling him

to waive his right to parliamentary privilege by suing The Guardian as a

private citizen. In any event, his action failed.

In November 2008, a major political row erupted about a more obscure

aspect of parliamentary privilege, when it emerged that the Conservatives’

immigration spokesman, Damian Green, had been arrested and questioned

by police for nine hours over allegations that he unlawfully solicited leaks

about government policy from a sympathetic civil servant in the Home Of-

fi ce. Both Opposition and government MPs united in criticising the police

action. Many saw it as an abuse of the long-established constitutional right

of members to conduct free and open conversations with offi cials in the Pal-

ace of Westminster—and a throwback to Charles I’s challenge to the free-

doms of Parliament in the seventeenth century. At time of writing, MPs had

turned their fi re on the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, who was accused

of having given his permission to offi cers to search Mr Green’s offi ce in the

House, potentially jeopardizing the confi dentiality of sensitive information

relating to his constituents.

Of the UK’s other key constitutional statutes, the most historically sig-

nifi cant are the 1701 Act of Settlement and the 1706–07 Acts of Union. The

former built on the newly introduced rules relating to monarchical succes-

sion in the Bill of Rights, by setting out the conditions for future sovereigns

outlined in Table 1.2.

The Acts of Union, meanwhile, were twin laws passed fi rstly England,

then in Scotland, in 1706 and 1707 respectively, formalizing the Treaty of



Statute Eff ect

Race Relations Acts 1965, 1968, and 1976

Outlawed discrimination on racial grounds

Government of Scotland and Government of Wales Acts 1998

Paved the way for national referenda to establish devolved power in Scotland and Wales

Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998

Incorporated into British law the Convention on the Protec-tion of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights), signed by the Council of Europe in 1950 (see p. 330–1)

House of Lords Act 1999

Removed all but 92 hereditary peers then remaining and created a ‘transitional’ Lords to remain until further, decisive reform was agreed by both Houses (see p. 66–70)

Table 1.3 Key statutes absorbed into the UK constitution in the

twentieth century

Rule Details

Protestants only The Crown should pass to the Protestant descendants of theElectress Sophie of Hanover (a fi rst cousin once removed of Queen Anne, who had inherited the throne after the death of Mary and her husband, William)

No marriages to Catholics

The monarch ‘shall join in communion with the Church of England’ and not marry a Roman Catholic

England for the English

If a person not native to England comes to the throne, England will not wage war for ‘any dominions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of England without the consent of Parliament’

Loyalty from the Crown

No monarch may leave the ‘British Isles’ without the consent of Parliament (repealed by George I in 1716)

Openness before Parliament

All government matters within the jurisdiction of the Privy Council (see p. 47) should be transacted there and all such resolutions must be signed, so that Parliament is aware of who has taken such decisions

Constitutional privileges forEnglish only

No foreigner, even if naturalized (unless born of English parents), shall be allowed to be a privy councillor or member of either House of Parliament, or hold ‘any offi ce or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements or hereditaments from the Crown, to himself or to any other or others in trust for him’ (repealed by later citizenship laws)

Ban onelection for Crown servants

No person working for the monarch or receiving a Crown pension may be a MP, to avoid ‘unwelcome’ royal interference in the work of Parliament

Judiciaryanswerable to Parliament

Judges’ commissions are valid quamdiu se bene gesserint(during good behaviour) and can be removed only by both Houses of Parliament

Parliament hasultimate sanction

No Royal Pardon (see p. 25) can save a person fromimpeachment by the Commons

Table 1.2 The rules governing monarchical succession in the Act of

Settlement 1701



Article Right enshrined

1 Obligation to respect human rights

2 Life

3 Protection from torture and inhuman, or degrading, treatment

4 Protection from slavery and forced, or compulsory, labour

5 Right to liberty and security of person

6 Right to a fair trial

7 Protection from retrospective criminalization of acts or omissions

8 Protection of private and family life

9 Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion

10 Freedom of expression

11 Freedom of association and assembly

12 Right to marry and found a family

13 Freedom from discrimination

14 Prohibition of discrimination

15 Derogations

16 Exemption for political activities of aliens

17 Prohibition of abuse of rights

18 Limitations on permitted restrictions of rights

Table 1.4 The Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

Union—the agreement that unifi ed the countries as one United Kingdom

under one sovereign and Parliament. Key Acts absorbed into UK law in

more recent times include those listed in Table 1.3.

The penultimate Act listed in Table 1.3—the Human Rights Act (HRA)

1998—justifi es some discussion here, given the growing contention by

many lawyers, human rights campaigners, and constitutional experts that

it confl icts with the British constitution as it previously stood. Although it

received Royal Assent in November 1998, the Act only came into force in

October 2000. Among its stipulations was that every future Bill put before

Parliament must now include a preface confi rming that the relevant secre-

tary of state is happy that it conforms with the convention. The principal

rights safeguarded by the convention are as outlined in Table 1.4.

In addition, the UK has accepted the First and Sixth (now Thirteenth) Pro-

tocols to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), of which there

are 14 altogether. The First Protocol includes additional rights for property

(Art. 1), education (Art. 2), and free and fair elections (Art. 3).



The Sixth Protocol, meanwhile, formally abolishes the death penalty in

peacetime, while the Thirteenth Protocol does so in all circumstances.

The Act has, in theory, strengthened the ability of ordinary people to chal-

lenge the actions of governments, public bodies, and private companies in

the UK and EU courts, by taking legal action through the European Court

of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, if necessary. There are, however,

some notable restrictions to its pre-eminence, and it is as yet a moot point as

to how far it takes absolute precedence over national laws and conventions.

There is a general consensus, for example, that the existing constitutional

principle of parliamentary privilege remains unaffected by the Act. In addi-

tion, British judges—although required by it to take account of judgments in

Strasbourg when making rulings in British courts—are not permitted sim-

ply to override extant parliamentary legislation that appears to contravene

the terms of the Convention.

In addition, the following formal qualifi cations exist in relation to the im-

plementation and enforcement of the Act:

• claims must be brought against the offending state or public body

‘within one year of the action about which the complaint is being

made’;

• some rights can theoretically be breached, if not ‘in accordance with

the laws of the country’ that is a signatory;

• breaches are tolerated ‘in the interests of national security, public

safety, or the country’s economic wellbeing; for the prevention of crime

and disorder, the protection of health or morals, or to protect the free-

dom and rights of others . . .’ .

In the UK, the HRA has arguably been repeatedly breached by successive

home secretaries, from David Blunkett to Jacqui Smith. The Anti-terrorism,

Crime and Security Act 2001, passed in the wake of the 11 September attacks

on New York, allowed the detention and deportation, without trial, of people

suspected of terrorist links, and Tony Blair repeatedly threatened to amend

the Act to prevent judges blocking further proposed crackdowns—particu-

larly on the activities of extremist Islamist preachers—following the 2005

London bombings.

In Scotland, meanwhile, the Act came into force in 1998—two years ahead

of England. By November 1999, the High Court had already declared unlaw-

ful the appointment of 129 temporary sheriffs (judges in the Scottish crimi-

nal courts) because they had been hired by the Lord Advocate, the member



of the Scottish Executive responsible for prosecutions—a clear confl ict with

one of the constitution’s fundamental guiding principles, the separation of

powers (see p. 19–21).

One potential outcome of the adoption of the Act in the longer term could

be the abolition of the Act of Settlement, which might be argued to infringe

human rights by preventing non-Protestants from acceding to the throne of

the UK and maintaining a system whereby the succession passes through

the male line (see below). For some time, The Guardian has argued that

the very existence of a monarchy is incompatible with the HRA and that it

should therefore be repealed. Because it is still technically illegal, under the

Treason Felony Act 1848, to advocate the monarchy’s abolition, The Guard-

ian recently tried to obtain a High Court declaration that the 1848 Act was

incompatible with Art. 10 of the HRA. Its attempt failed, due to a loophole,

because the court ruled that the Attorney General’s refusal to grant immu-

nity to its editor was not an ‘act of the state’—that is, that it fell outside the

HRA’s remit.

The most recent twist in the newspaper’s long-standing campaign for the

abolition of the Act came in September 2008, when it reported that Labour

MP Chris Bryant—charged by Gordon Brown during his fi rst year as prime

minister with reviewing the constitution—had recommended ending the bar

on Catholics succeeding to the throne and abolishing the principle of ‘eldest

male primogeniture’. This is the rule stating that, following the death of a

monarch, the crown should pass to his or her eldest son, over the head of

any older daughter. Mr Brown’s constitutional adviser, Wilf Stevenson, was

said to favour legislating to end both of these traditions early in a fourth

Labour term.

Besides the showpiece constitutional Acts listed in Table 1.3, a number of

others have contained key clauses with serious implications for the work-

ings of the British constitution. Among these are the myriad Parliament

Acts passed in the fi rst half of the twentieth century (discussed in more de-

tail in Chapter 2). Perhaps the single most signifi cant constitutional reform

introduced by any of these Acts was the stipulation, in the Parliament Act

1911, that a general election must be held a maximum of fi ve years after the

previous Parliament was convened (in other words, a little over fi ve years

after the previous polling day). Until then, parliaments could theoretically

last up to seven years, under the terms of the Septennial Act 1715. Despite

this change, unlike in the USA and other countries, British parliaments still

do not have fi xed terms.



Common law

For several centuries prior to the emergence of parliamentary democ-

racy, many laws passed in England were decided, on a case-by-case basis,

by judges. When this system began to emerge in the eleventh and twelfth

centuries, judicial decisions were often taken in an ad hoc way, at a very

local level, leading to signifi cant disparities from one area of the kingdom

to another—in terms of the perception of what was and was not a criminal

offence, and the type and severity of punishment meted out when laws were

broken.

In 1166, however, the fi rst Plantagenet king, Henry II, began the process

of institutionalizing a unifi ed national framework of common law derived

from what he saw as the more reasoned judgments made in local hearings

over previous decades. This new framework—which came to apply through-

out England and Wales, although not Scotland—elevated some local laws to a

national level, sought to eliminate arbitrary or eccentric rulings, and estab-

lished a great enduring constitutional right of citizens charged with crimi-

nal offences: a jury system, which would enshrine defendants’ entitlement

to be tried by ‘12 good men and true’ from among their fellow citizens. To

ensure that these new practices were implemented consistently and fairly

throughout the land, Henry appointed judges at his own central court and

sent them around the country to adjudicate on local disputes.

Many statutes passed—and constitutional conventions that have

evolved—in subsequent centuries have their roots in common law. Even

now, common law is arguably sometimes ‘created’: judges often have to

make rulings based on their interpretations of ambiguously worded Acts,

or of apparent confl icts between domestic and international laws. Such ‘test

cases’ are, in their way, common law hearings.

Conventions

Other than from formal statutes and court judgments, perhaps the single

most characteristic feature of Britain’s unwritten constitution is its incor-

poration of all manner of idiosyncratic, invariably quaint, and occasionally

absurd traditions and customs. These obscure and well-worn practices have

become accepted as part of Britain’s constitutional framework through little

more than endless repetition.

Many of the principal conventions operating in Parliament and govern-

ment today are discussed in detail elsewhere in this book. These include the

doctrines of collective responsibility and individual ministerial responsibil-

ity, and the tradition that the sovereign accepts the will of Parliament by



rubber-stamping new legislation with the Royal Assent. Other, more amus-

ing, conventions include the fact that the Speaker of the House of Lords

(until recently the Lord Chancellor) sits on a woolsack and wears a wig.

The annual State Opening of Parliament by the reigning monarch is her-

alded by a procession led by a ceremonical offi cer known as ‘The Gentle-

man Usher of the Black Rod’, who raps three times on the door of the Lords

with (naturally) a black staff to gain permission for MPs—or ‘strangers’—to

enter. This ritual is derived from a confrontation between Parliament and

the sovereign in 1642, when King Charles I tried to arrest fi ve MPs, in what

the Commons regarded as a breach of parliamentary privilege. Within Par-

liament today, a former of light ‘class warfare’ between the chambers re-

mains: MPs only refer to the Lords as ‘another place’.

Treatises

Just as judges often have to disentangle apparently contradictory elements

of Britain’s unwritten constitution when making rulings in court, so too hist-

orians, philosophers, and constitutional theorists have long struggled to

make sense of it.

Of the myriad books and theses written about the UK constitution over

the centuries, a handful have become so revered that they are now seen ef-

fectively to qualify as ‘part of’ that constitution themselves. Some are now

considered so indispensable that they are often used as ‘handbooks’ (albeit

unwieldy ones) by everyone from the Speaker of the House of Commons to

High Court barristers and judges. Many of today’s new laws and court judg-

ments are framed in reference to the wisdom imparted in such volumes, the

most celebrated of which are listed in Table 1.5.

Treaties

Over recent decades, Britain has signed many international treaties and

pacts. Of these, only a handful are arguably in any way ‘constitutional’—that

is, legally binding. Most—such as the 1945 Charter of the United Nations

and the North Atlantic Treaty, which established the North Atlantic Treaty

Organization (NATO) military alliance in 1949—are effectively little more

than membership agreements and, as such, could theoretically be ‘opted out

of’ at any time.

Some, however—such as the ECHR, belatedly ratifi ed by Labour in 1998—

have effectively been incorporated into the UK constitution and would there-

fore require legislation to ‘remove’ the obligations that they impose on the

state. There has also been considerable debate about the growing powers



Treatise Author Signifi cance

A Practical Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage ofParliament(Parliamentary Practice)

Erskine May (1844)

Sir Thomas Erskine May (1815–86), fi rst Baron Farnborough and a distinguished parliamentary offi cer, became Chief Librar-ian of the House of Commons Library and Clerk to the House of Commons. His most famous work remains the seminal exami-nation of the role, rights, and responsibili-ties of Parliament.

The English Constitution

Walter Bagehot (1867)

A maths graduate from University College, London, Bagehot (1826–77) was called to the Bar, but rejected it for a career in bank-ing and shipping. He went on to edit The Economist (the last column of which still bears his name in tribute), before writing his most esteemed work: a rumination on the relationship between Parliament and monarchy—and the contrast between the UK and US constitutions.

An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution

A. V. Dicey (1885) Albert Venn Dicey (1835–1922) was an accomplished scholar, appointed to the Vinerian Chair of English Law at the Uni-versity of Oxford in 1882, later becoming professor of law at the London School of Economics. Of all of the great constitu-tional treasises, Dicey’s is considered the most authoritative and far-reaching. Its central thesis was that—as long ago as 1885—the ‘freedom’ of British subjects was under attack by an increasingly ag-gressive rule of law. He saw the impartiality of the courts (which he believed to be es-sential to preserving this freedom) as even then being under attack from governments intent on limiting fundamental civil liber-ties. He might well disapprove of many recent developments, given controversies over the Labour government’s moves to limit defendants’ rights to request trial by jury, and to imprison, tag, and/or detain ‘terror suspects’ without trial.

Table 1.5 Seminal British constitutional treatises

of the EU, which Britain joined (amid some controversy) in 1973, when it

was still known as the European Economic Community (EEC). Recent trea-

ties—in particular, the 2007 Lisbon Treaty—have solidifi ed the relationship

between member states and the EU’s governing institutions, leading so-called

‘Euro-sceptics’ to claim that the UK has signed up to an ‘EU constitution’ by

the back door and that it is now effectively part of a ‘European super-state’



governed from Brussels, rather than an independent, sovereign nation, as

before. This is discussed further in Chapter 9.

The separation of powers in the UKPerhaps the most fundamental guiding principle underlying the British con-

stitution is that of the ‘separation of powers’. Based on the theories of French

political thinker Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755), the Trias Politica is a

notional model that splits the state into three branches:

• the ‘executive’ (the government);

• the ‘legislature’ (Parliament);

• the ‘judiciary’ (the courts).

The idea is that, to avoid arbitrary or dictatorial government, a constitu-

tional framework is needed that does not confer too many powers on a sin-

gle individual (or small group of individuals). In theory, if the executive is

wholly ‘separated’ from the legislature and, in turn, the judiciary, each can

act as a ‘check and balance’ on the other.

Montesquieu formulated his theory based on the workings of the UK sys-

tem, although Britain’s democracy arguably adheres far less strictly to this

model than many that have emerged since. In practice, numerous overlaps

have emerged down the centuries between the roles, powers, and even mem-

bership of the key institutions that are meant to be preserving the separa-

tion of powers, including that:

• constitutionally, the reigning monarch (as ‘head of state’) is titular

head of all three branches of the constitution;

• until 2007, when the post was reformed (see p. 78), the Lord Chancel-

lor was actually a member of all three institutions, as Speaker of the

House of Lords (legislature), ‘manager’ of the legal profession (judi-

ciary), and a minister in the Cabinet (executive);

• the prime minister and most other ministers are members of the gov-

ernment (executive) and the Parliament (legislature);

• prior to the expected establishment of an independent Supreme Court

in October 2009, the Law Lords were still the UK’s highest court of ap-

peal (judiciary), as well as being members of the Lords (legislature).



Such constitutional overlaps are not confi ned to Britain. Many other par-

liamentary democracies—particularly those directly modelled on that of

the UK, as in many Commonwealth countries—display a similar fusion of

powers in practice, rather than the ‘separation’ to which they aspire. Con-

stitutional historians are increasingly drawing a distinction in this regard

between countries that practice ‘presidential government’ and those char-

acterized by ‘parliamentary government’. In the former (which include the

USA, France, South Africa, and Australia), separation is felt to be both more

practised and practicable than in countries such as Britain, where the most

senior politician (the prime minister) is today drawn from among the ranks

of ordinary MPs and, as such, is elected to a constituency in the same way

as his or her peers.

In the UK, executive decisions are taken primarily by prime ministers and

their ministers, before being presented for approval to Parliament (where

most of them are also present, this time as voting MPs and peers like every

other). In the USA and other presidential states, in contrast, the most senior

elected politicians are known as presidents—who, in the absence of reigning

monarchs, are also heads of state. Crucially, unlike in Britain and other parl-

iamentary states, presidents are usually elected on different timetables to

their national parliaments. The separation of powers in the USA is far more

pronounced than it is in Britain because Congress (made up of the Senate and

the House of Representatives—the US equivalent of Britain’s Parliament) is

elected in large part on a different date, and in a different manner, to the presi-

dent. More crucially, the president (unlike the British prime minister) is not a

member of either House; so while he or she may present policies to Congress

for its approval, he or she does not preside over the ensuing debate and vote(s)

within the two chambers in the way that prime ministers do in the Commons.

Another feature of the separation of powers enjoyed by presidential states

is the fact that, historically, they tend to have developed a more provably in-

dependent judicial system than in many parliamentary states. To this end,

the USA has a Supreme Court that is, in theory, entirely separate from the

political process. Notwithstanding controversies over the president’s ability

to nominate judges to replace those who retire (President Bush was casti-

gated in 2005 for choosing Harriet Miers, his former adviser and a long-

time conservative ally, who later withdrew her own candidacy), this system

is felt to be better than one in which judges straddle the notional divide

bet ween legislature and judiciary by serving in both a legal and legislative

capacity. To this end, in 2007, Jack Straw, as inaugural Secretary of State for

Justice (and de facto Lord Chancellor) announced that the Law Lords would



be effectively removed from Parliament in 2009, to sit in the new US-style

independent court, the creation of which was approved in the Constitutional

Reform Act 2005.

Further reforms were promised by Gordon Brown during his fi rst weeks

in Downing Street, as part of a ‘new constitutional settlement’ for the British

people. Among those mooted was a law to formalize the tradition (notably

bypassed by his predecessor over Iraq) that Parliament should always have

the fi nal say on whether Britain goes to war.

The monarchyThe British sovereign is the head of what is known as a ‘constitutional mon-

archy’. This means that, while he or she remains the UK’s head of state, with

the notional prerogative to govern and take major constitutional decisions,

in practice she does not do so. Unlike in presidential countries, Britain’s

head of state is a fi gurehead with little real power. Instead, day-to-day deci-

sions regarding domestic and foreign policy are left to Parliament and, more

specifi cally, the government, led by the ‘First Lord of the Treasury’, or prime

minister.

The authority invested in successive prime ministers to choose their own

ministers, devise and draft legislation, and decide whether to take the state

to war, among other things, is derived from another of those key constitu-

tional principles: the Royal Prerogative. In essence, this is the body of cus-

tomary privileges and powers historically acquired by reigning monarchs

(predominantly in the Middle Ages). Today, the majority of so-called ‘pre-

rogative powers’ derived from this principle are exercised not by the Crown

itself, but by Parliament.

The origins of the modern British monarchyAlthough the present monarchy is also descended from several powerful

families with roots outside the UK, Queen Elizabeth II is said to be able

to trace her line on one side directly to King Egbert, the ruler who united

England under one throne in AD 829. The position that she occupies is that of

Britain’s longest standing secular institution (its only interruption being the

previously mentioned interregnum from 1649 to 1660).



Although it was short-lived, this period—sometimes referred to as the

‘English Revolution’—marked a symbolic break with the past that was to

change the role of the British monarchy forever. Beforehand, the prevailing

‘rationale’ for the existence of the sovereign derived from the ‘Divine Right

of Kings’. By propagating the idea that they could not be held answerable to

‘manmade’ institutions such as mere parliaments, European medieval mon-

archs sought to reign with the minimum of outside interference—with the

possible exception of that of the Church, which, in some notable instances

(such as Henry VIII’s inability to obtain permission from the Pope to divorce

his fi rst wife, Catherine of Aragon) directly challenged their pre-eminence.

Parliaments were generally regarded as tools to enable kings and queens

to raise taxes, pass edicts, and declare wars with impunity (and a veneer of

legitimacy).

In England, all of this was to change following the execution of Charles I.

While his eldest son, Charles II, ultimately succeeded him following Crom-

well’s death, the concept that any monarch had a divine right to rule un-

challenged had, by then, been all but rescinded. Through a succession of

landmark constitutional statutes—most notably, the Bill of Rights and Act of

Settlement (see pp. 8–12)—a newly liberated Parliament stamped its author-

ity on the nation, and (in all but name) the monarch.

The role of the monarchy todayIn The English Constitution, Bagehot (1826–77) argued that it was incumbent

on monarchs to embody the following qualities:

“The right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.”

Specifi cally, the role and powers of the monarch are best explained by split-

ting them into two broad categories: actual and notional.

Actual prerogative powers—those exercised by the monarch

Despite the huge upheavals of recent centuries, the reigning sovereign still

holds the following key constitutional offi ces:

• head of state;

• head of the executive, legislature, and judiciary;

• commander-in-chief of the armed forces;

• supreme governor of the established Church of England;



• head of the Commonwealth (and head of state of 15 of its 53

members);

• the authority from which the Royal Mint derives its licence to coin and

print money (at present, in his or her image).

But so much for their offi cial titles: what does the monarch actually do? And

more specifi cally: which prerogative powers do monarchs personally still

exercise in an age when the government holds sway over most key political

decisions?

The core roles and duties fo the monarch—many of which are largely

ceremonial—include:

• reading Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech, or the ‘Gracious Ad-

dress’—better known as the Queen’s Speech—at the annual State

Opening of Parliament each October or November, or shortly after a

general election;

• governing the Church of England;

• ‘creating’ peers, and conferring knighthoods and honours in person;

• meeting the prime minister once a week (usually on Tuesdays) to dis-

cuss Cabinet business and to offer advice on affairs of state;

• entertaining visiting heads of state at Buckingham Palace;

• visiting other nations on offi cial state visits—including those of the

Commonwealth—as Britain’s premier overseas ambassador;

• chairing meetings of the Privy Council (a body of advisers made up

of members of the current and previous Cabinets, plus other distin-

guished individuals, which issues Royal Charters and Orders in Coun-

cil—see p. 73);

• attending, on horseback, the ‘Trooping the Colour’ (the monarch’s an-

nual birthday parade, led by regiments of HM Armed Forces).

Although this list of powers may seem feeble in the scheme of things, there

is considerable anecdotal evidence to suggest that recent monarchs have

discharged their duties with some rigour. Queen Elizabeth II is reputed to

have given certain prime ministers a hard time in her weekly audiences by

grilling them on specifi c details of Cabinet business. In her fi rst audience

with then newly elected Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, in 1964, she

famously wrong-footed him by expressing interest in proposals for a ‘new

town’ near Bletchley. Having not yet read his Cabinet papers, he clearly



knew nothing of them. In his 1975 resignation speech, Wilson made a joke

of the episode, saying that he would advise his successors to ‘do their home-

work’ before meeting the Queen.

In addition to the above prerogative powers retained by the monarch and

his or her immediate family, the monarch has traditionally been called on to

fulfi l a unifying role as a national fi gurehead at times of crisis. The late HM

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother famously toured bombsites in London’s

East End to provide comfort to dispossessed families during the Blitz, while

the Queen’s annual televised Christmas Day address is designed as much to

‘sum up’ the year past and look to the one ahead on behalf of the whole nation

as to update her subjects on her own regal affairs. Such is the onus placed on

the sovereign to ‘speak for the nation’ at times of tragedy or disaster, that the

initial silence of Queen Elizabeth II following the death of Diana, Princess of

Wales and lover Dodi Fayed in a Paris car crash in 1997 became a cause célè-

bre among her critics—and allegedly prompted newly elected premier Tony

Blair to appeal to her to make a statement in tribute to her daughter-in-law

(as dramatized in the Oscar-winning fi lm The Queen).

Notional prerogative powers—those deferred to government

Most sovereign powers are exercised ‘on the advice of ministers’, which

means that it is ministers—and the prime minister, in most cases—who take

the necessary decisions. In practice, then, it is the monarch who offers the

‘advice’ to prime ministers, rather than the other way around, and prime

ministers who discharge the following functions:

• dissolving and summoning Parliament—that is, calling elections and

forming new parliaments after the results are in;

• giving the Royal Assent to Bills passed by Parliament;

• appointing ministers and other senior public offi cials, including

judges, diplomats, governors, offi cers in the armed forces, police chief

constables, and Church of England bishops and archbishops;

• devising the legislative agenda for each parliamentary session (year

of Parliament) and writing the Queen’s Speech, which will make these

proposals public at the State Opening of Parliament;

• declaring war and peace;

• the prorogation of Parliament—that is, the suspending of the activities

of Parliament (if not Parliament itself) for the duration of holiday peri-

ods, such as the Summer Recess, and the annual Christmas and Easter

breaks;



• drawing up lists of nominations—in consultation with the leaders of

opposition parties—for peerages, knighthoods, and other honours in

the New Year Honours List and the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

In addition, the monarch may occasionally issue a ‘Royal Pardon’—known

formally as the ‘Royal Prerogative of Mercy’—to convicted criminals. This

tends to happen either when an individual found guilty of a crime is subse-

quently pardoned in light of new evidence, or (very rarely) when the actions

and/or behaviour of a prisoner are deemed to warrant their early release

from a sentence. Unlike all other sovereign powers exercised by the gov-

ernment on the monarch’s behalf, pardons are issued on the advice not of

the prime minister, but of the Home Secretary in England and Wales, and

the First Minister in Scotland, following the introduction of devolution (see

p. 31–40). A recent example of a Royal Pardon was the posthumous forgive-

ness offered to families of all British soldiers executed for cowardice dur-

ing the Second World War.

How the monarchy is fundedThe income of the reigning monarch and his or her immediate family—

known as the ‘Royal Household’—comes from four principal sources:

• the Civil List;

• grants-in-aid;

• the Privy Purse;

• personal income.

The Civil List

Often used by those in favour of abolishing the monarchy as a form of short-

hand for the Royal Family as a whole, this core fund, fi nanced by the British

taxpayer, ultimately originated with the Bill of Rights.

With the accession to the throne of William and Mary, Parliament voted

to give the Royal Household £600,000 to aid it in ‘civil government’. The

Civil List in its present form was set up in 1760, during the reign of George

III. In return for the king’s surrender to Parliament of his so-called ‘heredi-

tary revenues’—that is, the income generated by the Crown Lands (estates

owned over a period of time by the monarchy)—MPs agreed to pledge a

fi xed annual income to the Royal Household. In practice, this exchange

has reaped huge dividends for Parliament: in 2007–08, the income from the



Crown Lands (as administered by the Commissioners of Crown Lands) was

£190.8m, compared to the £40m paid to the monarch.

Since 2001, the Civil List itself has been fi xed at £7.9m a year for the Queen

until 2011, with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip), receiv-

ing a separate annuity of £359,000. In a deal struck with the Royal House-

hold by then Chancellor Gordon Brown, the Queen agreed to fi nance any

increases in her outgoings from a ‘reserve fund’ worth up to £30m accumu-

lated over the previous decade. In return, her own and her husband’s ‘fi xed’

incomes would rise by 7.5 per cent a year to keep them abreast of infl ation

(which, at 3 per cent in 2001, was less than half as high). As a result, by the

end of 2007–08, the Civil List had actually swelled to £12.7m.

So for what does the Civil List pay? In broad terms, it funds the following

expenses for both the reigning monarch and his or her spouse:

• around 70 per cent pays the salaries of the 645 servants, butlers, and

other employees of the Royal Household;

• most of the remaining 30 per cent covers the costs of royal garden par-

ties (attended by some 48,000 people each year) and hospitality during

state visits.

In addition, a number of annual parliamentary allowances are issued each

year to individual members of the Royal Family, including the Duke of York

(Prince Andrew) and the Princess Royal (Princess Anne), under the auspices

of the Civil List Acts. These amount to £2.5m extra in total. Since April 1993,

however, the Queen has, in practice, refunded £1.5m of this money to Par-

liament, using her personal pot of money, the Privy Purse (see p. 28). The

remaining £1m has been retained annually as income for the Duke of Edin-

burgh and, until her death in 2002, the Queen Mother (who received £643,000

a year). All other senior royals performing offi cial duties are now paid annui-

ties out of the Privy Purse, rather than the Civil List.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the few key members of the Royal Household

who derives no such annuity income is the present heir, the Prince of Wales

(Prince Charles), who, as Duke of Cornwall, earns substantial income from

his sprawling 130,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate. Originally bestowed

on the Black Prince in 1337, despite its name, the Duchy actually extends

over 23 counties. According to the Prince’s offi cial website, in 2007–08, his

income from the Duchy was £16.3m, a year-on-year increase of £1m, or 7 per

cent—twice the rate of infl ation.



Grants-in-aid

Awarded to the Crown by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport

(DCMS), grants totalling £15.3m a year (fi xed until at least 2011) are bestowed

on the so-called ‘occupied royal palaces’. These are those in which members

of the Royal Family still live, as distinct from the likes of Hampton Court

Palace and the Tower of London, both of which are overseen by a separate

organization, Historic Royal Palaces (also funded by DCMS).

The occupied palaces include the following:

• Buckingham Palace (home of the Queen and Prince Philip);

• St James’s Palace (home of Prince Charles);

• Kensington Palace;

• Windsor Castle (second home of the Queen).

In addition to grants-in-aid, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle also help

to maintain themselves by means of their summer public openings. Grants

may not be used for the upkeep of the two royal estates—Sandringham in

Norfolk and Balmoral in Scotland—which are the Queen’s private property

and not her legacy as head of state.

A further set of grants, meanwhile, are awarded by the Department for

Transport (DfT), to the tune of £6.2m in 2007–08. These cover the cost of

transporting members of the Royal Family to and from their three thousand

annual engagements in the UK and overseas. Until she was decommissioned

in 1997, the biggest grant was used to maintain the Royal Yacht Britannia,

the Queen’s offi cial ship, which was launched in 1953. Now that Britannia is

little more than a visitor attraction, royal transport consists of:

• the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft of the No. 32 (The Royal)

Squadron;

• the Royal Train;

• other chartered and scheduled fl ights on offi cial visits.

In 2007–08, disclosure of the Royal Family’s movements in the preceding

12 months produced some typically eyebrow-raising details. The Queen

and her husband—occasionally accompanied by one or two fellow family

members—made journeys totalling £200,000 on the Royal Train during the

year, including one from Windsor to Euston—via, of all places, Liverpool—to

attend the Royal Variety Performance. This convoluted trip cost £23,750. But



while £200,000 may sound a lot of money, it is half as much as the £400,000

that the royal couple spent on 11 train trips in 2006–07—including a return

visit to Brighton, which set them back £19,271.

No such restraint was visible, however, in the royals’ fl ying habits: secu-

rity concerns have seen family members avoiding scheduled fl ights in cer-

tain parts of the world more than ever before, with the result that they spent

£275,506 between them on chartered fl ights in 2007–08—£203,007 of it on

helicopter trips. A further £143,461 was spent on scheduled fl ights and, on top

of that, £692,790 on fl ights on various smaller commercial aircraft, includ-

ing Sikorsky S-76 Spirit helicopters, BAe 146 light aeroplanes, and HS125

corporate jets. Not for the fi rst time, the Duke of York was by far the most

extravagant individual air traveller—notching up fl ights totalling £640,987

in the course of the year, including a £212,880 charter fl ight in the Far East,

taking in stops including Singapore, Jakarta, Delhi, and Mumbai.

The most expensive single fl ight was the use of a chartered plane by the

Queen and Duke of Edinburgh for a May 2007 round trip from London Heath-

row via Richmond, Norfolk, Lexington, and St Andrews Airforce Base, which

set the taxpayer back £381,813. Intriguingly, this cost even more than a char-

tered fl ight for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall from Lyon to

Uganda and Turkey as part of a Foreign Offi ce visit, which totalled £327,801

(less £11,740 in reimbursements).

The remaining portion of the grants-in-aid budget (amounting to £500,000

in 2007–08) is spent on royal ‘communications’—that is, letters, telephone

bills, and other correspondences, including invitations to garden parties.

The Privy Purse

Dating back to 1399, the Privy Purse is derived largely from the income gen-

erated by the Duchy of Lancaster—a huge expanse of land covering 19,268

acres and the sole surviving Crown estate to remain in the hands of the mon-

arch. It is kept under lock and key by the monarch’s personal accountant and

administered by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—in recent years,

almost always a senior Cabinet minister.

Personal income

Like anyone else, senior members of the Royal Family, despite deriving much

of their income from the state, are free to generate their own earnings—

provided that they pay Income Tax on them, like their subjects. Examples

of the personal incomes earned by individual members of the Royal House-

hold include the military salaries drawn by Prince Charles, who served for a

time in the Royal Navy, Prince Andrew, who saw action during the Falklands



War, and Prince Harry, who is currently in the Household Cavalry (Blues

and Royals). Other examples include the income earned by Prince Charles

from his Duchy of Cornwall estate, in the form of land rent and the proceeds

from goods produced there—for example, his ‘Duchy Originals’ products.

His youngest brother, Prince Edward, Duke of Wessex, has a fi lm and televi-

sion company, Ardent Productions.

More sporadic sources of income might include everything from share

dividends to windfalls from betting on the races (the Queen Mother famously

liked a fl utter). Perhaps the most controversial example, however, was that

which emerged following the collapse of the trial of Paul Burrell, former

butler of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, in 2003. During the hearings,

it emerged that Prince Charles’s household had been giving away—and, in

some cases, selling off—unwanted offi cial gifts bestowed on members of

the Royal Household during state visits to foreign countries. Following a

lengthy and controversial inquiry led by Sir Michael Peat, the Prince’s pri-

vate secretary, the future king was forced to dismiss his most trusted valet,

Michael Fawcett—the servant who had disposed of many of the items. It

was never established how much involvement in, or knowledge of, these

practices the Prince himself had.

Taxation and the monarchyIt has long been argued by republicans that the Queen and Royal Family

derive great dividends each year from the British taxpayer, while giving

back little, or nothing, in return. In truth, this is not entirely true. Like ev-

eryone, the Queen has always paid indirect taxes—that is, Value-Added Tax

(VAT), and other tariffs levied on consumer goods and services. She has

also long paid, on a voluntary basis, local taxation—that is, Council Tax and,

before that, the Community Charge (or ‘Poll Tax’) and rates. It was not until

1993, however, that she agreed to pay direct taxes—principally, Income Tax.

This decision was taken in the wake of a mounting backlash over the reve-

lation that much of the £60m cost of repairing Windsor Castle following a

devastating fi re in 1992 was funded by taxpayers, despite the fact that they

already hugely subsidized the Royal Household.

The monarch and certain members of her immediate family do, however,

continue to enjoy substantial tax breaks not granted to her subjects. In part-

icular, while the Privy Purse pays tax and the Queen’s personal estate is

subject to Inheritance Tax, grants-in-aid are not regarded as taxable, and

neither is any transfer of property ‘from sovereign to sovereign’—that is,

between the Queen and her successor.



The successionFor many centuries, as is commonly the case in other European nation states,

the monarchy has tended to pass from father to son in Britain, through a

process known as ‘eldest male primogeniture’. Only when a male line (going

through the eldest son) has been exhausted does the crown pass to the next

eldest male sibling of the originator of that line, and only after that will it

ever go to a female sibling. Therefore, as things stand, Prince Charles will

inherit the throne from his mother on her death and, after he dies, it will

pass to his eldest son, William, and from him to the eldest of his own sons. If

William were to fail to have any sons, but have a daughter, it would eventu-

ally pass to her, but if he were to have no children and die before his brother,

Harry, the crown would fi nally pass to him.

The other key ‘rules’ governing the succession—between them derived

from the Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement—state that they must:

• be in communion with the Church of England;

• not marry a Roman Catholic;

• swear to preserve the Established Churches of England and Scotland;

• swear to uphold the Protestant succession.

Monarchy versus presidency—which way forward?Although Britain has had a monarchy for the best part of 1,500 years, today

it is one of only a handful of ‘developed’ nations to retain one—let alone to

boast an extended Royal Family, funded largely by the taxpayer. Perhaps

unsurprisingly, the past decade or more has witnessed growing calls from

some quarters for the monarchy to be abolished and replaced by an elected

head of state, in the guise of a president. These calls have been fuelled by a

succession of controversies surrounding the Royal Household and, in partic-

ular, that relating to Prince Charles’s divorce from the late Diana, Princess

of Wales, and revelations about his long-standing relationship with Camilla

Parker-Bowles (now his second wife). Further succour was given to those

arguing for Britain’s hereditary fi gurehead to be replaced by an elected one

by the narrow decision of the Australian electorate to retain the Queen as

their head of state in November 1999. In 2007, the country’s Labour Prime

Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced his intention to hold a further such refer-

endum in the near future.



The argument for an elected head of state is fairly self-explanatory: in a

modern democracy, so the republican case goes, it is surely only right that

the state’s ultimate ambassador—that is, the individual who most represents

its interests on the international stage—should gain their ‘mandate’ to do so

from their subjects. But what of the arguments for retaining a monarchy?

Opinions differ among constitutional historians about the merits of the insti-

tution, but perhaps the most oft-cited argument in favour of the hereditary

principle is that it produces heads of state who have the luxury of being able

to maintain an objective, independent-minded distance from the day-to-day

workings of the political process—rather than being hidebound by the nar-

row, short-term thinking that constrains politicians reliant on the votes of

a fi ckle electorate. In addition, the presence of Queen Elizabeth II through

fi fty years of changing governments and shifting political priorities has pro-

vided, argue some, a welcome note of continuity that is absent from presi-

dential states.

Devolution—from union to governmentin the nationsThe bulk of this chapter has focused on outlining the process by which the

modern British state came into being, and the rules, customs, and laws that

has evolved to determine the balance of powers between Parliament, the

monarchy, and citizens.

The UK is a ‘representative democracy’—that is, a state, the power of

which is exercised through democratically elected representatives (in the

UK’s case, MPs in the Commons). Broadly speaking, there are two main

types of democracy: federal and unitary. In federal democracies, countries

are divided into separate political units, each of which has a large degree

of autonomy over its own affairs. The USA is a good example of a federal

democracy: major foreign and domestic policy decisions are taken by the

national government—president and Congress—but many day-to-day mat-

ters are decided by individual federal administrations on a state-by-state

basis. The most oft-cited example of federalism in action relates to the man-

ner in which different states punish felons convicted of serious crimes such

as murder and rape: while 14 of the states that make up the USA favour cus-

todial sentences, such as life imprisonment, the remaining 36 still practise

the death penalty.



Britain, in contrast to the USA, is a unitary democracy. This means that

the bulk of power remains in the hand of central government and the West-

minster Parliament. But while the constitutional story of Britain since the

late medieval period has, for the most part, been one of the gradual con-

solidation of a single UK run from the centre, in recent years, this has been

compromised by moves towards a more decentralized form of government,

taking power closer to the people from whom it derives.

The story of the emergence of local government—that is, elected local au-

thorities, funded by local taxpayers, which run services in individual areas

of the UK—is told in detail in the second half of this book. But, at a higher

level than the strictly ‘local’, there now exists in Scotland, Wales, and North-

ern Ireland a further tier of government to which signifi cant powers have

recently been devolved by Westminster, taking decision-making closer to

the inhabitants of those countries. This statutory transfer of power from

central government to the constituent nations that, alongside England, make

up the UK is known as ‘devolution’.

Before proceeding further, however, it is necessary to underline the im-

portant distinction between ‘devolution’ and ‘independence’. Although the

parties that most enthusiastically embraced devolution in Scotland, Wales,

and Northern Ireland tend to be ‘nationalist’ ones—that is, those that would

ultimately like to break away from the UK and become independent states—

the policy does not amount to any form of independence in itself; neither

does it inevitably follow that, having gained devolution, a country will one

day become independent. Indeed, one of the principal arguments used by

Labour to justify devolution was that, in granting it, they were trying to safe-

guard the union of Britain, by permitting a limited degree of autonomy that

made practical sense and would answer many of the frustrations expressed

by dissatisfi ed, but otherwise loyal, British subjects in those countries. Con-

versely, those in favour of independence have argued that, in the long term,

it makes little sense for a national parliament in Scotland or Wales that takes

most of its own day-to-day decisions without needing formal permission

from Westminster to remain its vassals and that full self-government is the

logical next step. Although an Act of Parliament would have to be passed at

Westminster to pave the way for independence in practice, the clamour for

a breakaway government has become even more acute since Alex Salmond,

leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, was elected First Minister in May

2007, eradicating Labour’s majority share of the vote in Scotland for the fi rst

time in fi fty years.



Mr Salmond has pledged to hold a referendum on the question within the

next four years, although he has as yet failed to set a date—inviting specu-

lation in some quarters that he might ultimately cry shy. In an apparent

attempt to call his bluff, the former Scottish Labour Party leader, Wendy

Alexander, incurred the wrath of Gordon Brown in May 2008 by publicly an-

nouncing that she favoured holding a referendum immediately to ‘settle the

issue’—and claiming that she had spoken to the prime minister on the phone

before making her statement and that he had said he agreed with her.

The unifi cation of Great Britain

Wales

Like much of the UK’s constitutional heritage, the concept of devolution orig-

inated in the Middle Ages, when Wales and Scotland fi rst began to demand

the right to rule themselves independently of the English sovereign. Of the

two countries, Wales has the longest formal association with England. The

main stages in its moves towards incorporation into the UK are outlined in

Table 1.6.

Scotland

Scotland’s progress towards integration in the UK was a more complex

one—due, at least in part, to the fact that it was never formally absorbed

Date Event

Fifth century Departure of the Romans and rise of Anglo-Saxon hegemony over much of Britain, despite attempts by a number of Welshkingdoms—including Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed, and Gwent—to unite in defi ance of this latest invasion

Late thirteenth century

The Norman Conquest fi nally reaches south Wales

1093 By now, all of Wales has been subsumed under English rule

1707 The Acts of Union are passed, fusing England, Scotland, and Wales into a single ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’

1536 and 1543 Two Acts of Parliament formally incorporate Wales into a new Realm of England. Although English is the offi cial language, Wales continues to exert its distinctive Celtic heritage into modern times—leading to the bilingualism of modern times

1925 The Welsh Nationalist Party, Plaid Cymru, is formed, and its fi rst MPs are elected to Parliament in the 1960s

Table 1.6 Timeline for the incorporation of Wales into the UK



into the Roman Empire. It took centuries of confl ict during the medieval pe-

riod for it fi nally to succumb to the authority of the English Crown, a broad

timeline of which is outlined in Table 1.7.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland’s incorporation into the UK was more problematic, encom-

passing as it did its split from southern Ireland (Eire). The early stages of

the process are outlined in Table 1.8.

The path to devolution in ScotlandThe workings of the governing institutions set up under devolution in

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are explored in more detail in the

next chapter. What follows here is an outline of the process by which these

institutions were put in place following the 1997 referenda and the levels of

devolution granted in each case.

Of the three countries, Scotland has been granted the most extensive deg -

ree of devolved government, following the enabling legislation passed to

formalize devolution in 1998. In part, this is a refl ection of the fact that,

for complex historical reasons, the country has long had certain devolved

functions—most notably, a distinctive legal system. More signifi cantly,

however, it refl ected the growing calls north of the border after 18 years of

Date Event

Fifth century Romans leave Britain, having failed to conquer Scotland fully

Ninth century

Individual Scottish kingdoms unite under a single Celtic monarchy, which goes on to rule for several hundred years

1296 Edward I tries to impose English rule; William Wallace leads Scots revolt

1328 Edward III is forced to recognize Robert Bruce as Robert I ofScotland—the fi rst king of the House of Stuart, which went on initially to establish strong links with France, rather than England

1567 The English force Mary, Queen of Scots, to abdicate and hand the throne to her infant son, James VI (later James I of England). ThePresbyterian Church usurps Catholicism to become the established church of Scotland

1603 James VI succeeds the childless Elizabeth I to the English throne

1707 The Acts of Union are passed. Scotland subsequently dissolves its own Parliament and sends its MPs to the English Parliament at Westminster

Table 1.7 Timeline for the incorporation of Scotland into the UK



Date Event

1171 Henry II invades Ireland and proclaims himself overlord of fi ve extant Irish provinces (each governed by300-year-old clans)

Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Catholics fl ee Ireland, leaving land around Ulster to be occupied by Protestant Scottish and English migrants

1692 Protestants assume control of Ireland, spurred on by the victory of William of Orange (the fi rst of the‘Orangemen’) over deposed James II at the Battle of the Boyne a year earlier

Eighteenth century Growing pressure for greater self-determination from England by controlling Protestant Irish minority

1886, 1893, and 1912–14 Successive Home Rule Bills introduced, unsuccessfully, to give Ireland a form of limited self-government

1916 Ireland declared a republic at Dublin’s General PostOffi ce after Easter Rising by Irish Volunteer rebels(forerunners of the IRA), who surrender fi ve days later

1918 Sinn Féin (meaning ‘Ourselves Alone’), the IRA’s political wing, wins 73 Irish seats at the general election—more than twice as many as are won by the Unionist parties combined

1920 The IRA eff ectively rules large areas of Ireland as the country slips into civil disobedience. Parliament passes the Government Act of Ireland, which sets up two Home Rule parliaments: one in Belfast, covering six of Ulster’s nine counties; the other in Dublin, covering theremaining 23 (the ‘Republic of Ireland’)

December 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty passed, formalizing NorthernIreland’s status as a sectarian society

1949 Republic names itself ‘Eire’ and pulls out of the Commonwealth

Table 1.8 Timeline for the incorporation of Northern Ireland into the UK

Conservative rule at Westminster for a greater degree of autonomy from a

national Parliament that seemed increasingly remote—both politically and

geographically—from Scottish interests.

The path to Scottish devolution began in the 1960s, when a previous Labour

government established a Royal Commission to examine the arguments for

some form of home rule in the country. The sequence of events leading to

eventual devolution was as outlined in Table 1.9.

Unlike Wales and Northern Ireland, where (at present) the powers devolved

are much the same, the Scottish Parliament has considerable authority, with

only foreign affairs, defence policy, the welfare system, and the introduction



of new taxes outside its remit. Its powers therefore include determining edu-

cation, health, environment, and transport policy in Scotland, and, perhaps

most signifi cantly, being able to ‘vary’—that is, raise or lower—Income Tax

by up to three pence in the pound.

The ‘West Lothian Question’

The growing assertiveness of the Scottish Parliament in light of these

powers—for example, it voted to reject foundation hospitals and undergrad-

uate top-up fees, two deeply unpopular Blair policies that were passed into

law south of the border—has raised some signifi cant constitutional questions.

None is more explosive than the ‘West Lothian Question’: the argument that

devolution allows Scottish MPs to continue to vote on issues that do not affect

their own country, but directly affect England and Wales, while members

with constituencies in those countries have no power to vote on issues spe-

cifi c to Scotland. Although devolution was only introduced a decade ago, this

quandary was fi rst raised in debate in the Commons by Labour backbencher

Tam Dalyell in the 1970s. It was dubbed the ‘West Lothian Question’ by then

Tory MP Enoch Powell after the name of Dalyell’s then constituency.

Date Event

1973 Royal Commission on the Constitution, set up by Harold Wilson’s Labour government in the late 1960s,recommends devolution to Edward Heath’s Conservatives

1978 Re-elected Labour government passes the Scotland Act, paving the way for a referendum on Scottish self-govern-ment. Under its terms, 40 per cent of the entire Scottish electorate must vote for devolution for it to be granted

March 1979 Devolution is put on hold indefi nitely because, although 52 per cent of those who turned out to vote supported the idea, this was equivalent to only 32 per cent of thoseentitled to vote

July 1997 Newly re-elected Labour government publishes Scotland’s Parliament, a White Paper advocating devolution

11 September 1997 This time, the referendum attracts a 60 per cent turnout, with 74 per cent of voters voting for devolution and 64 per cent voting ‘yes’ in answer to a second question, asking if they want a Scottish Parliament to have tax-varying powers

1998 Government of Scotland Act is passed, conferring devolution

12 May 1999 Queen opens new Scottish Parliament after its precisepowers are confi rmed by a consultative steering group

7 September 2004 Grand opening of £420m purpose-built Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, by foot of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

Table 1.9 Timeline for the introduction of devolution in Scotland



Today, the West Lothian Question rages more than ever—not least because,

on more than one occasion before he handed over to Gordon Brown, Mr Blair

managed to bolster a shaky Commons majority in votes on controversial

legislation with the help of Scottish MPs who had let it be known that they

did not support the same policies in their own country. The fact that Brown

is a Scottish MP himself, and represents a Scottish constituency to boot, has

done little to dampen the issue.

The path to devolution in WalesWelsh devolution was introduced as outlined in Table 1.10.

The rocky road to devolution in Northern IrelandDue to the fallout from ‘The Troubles’, the devolution process in Northern

Ireland has been characteristically problematic, with the various parties

unable to agree a workable framework for devolved government until very

recently. A landmark agreement signed in 2007 appeared fi nally, however, to

bury the hatchet between the main Republican and Unionist parties, with the

ruling Democratic Unionists accepting that the IRA had decommissioned its

weapons, as it had long claimed and the Northern Ireland Assembly having

power restored.

The saga that led to the granting of meaningful devolution to Northern

Ireland lasted decades, as outlined in Table 1.11.

Date Event

July 1997 White Paper entitled A Voice for Wales introduced by the new government, outlining its proposals for Welsh devolution

18 September 1997 Referendum attracts low turnout of around 50 per cent, but 50.3 per cent vote in favour of devolved powers

1998 Government of Wales Act passed to lay out framework

1999 National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) Order introduced, to provide the legal and constitutional framework

6 May 1999 First election for National Assembly for Wales

12 May 1999 National Assembly for Wales meets for fi rst time

1 March 2006 Queen offi cially opens new purpose-built £67m WelshAssembly building in Cardiff

Table 1.10 Timeline for the introduction of devolution in Wales



Table 1.11 Timeline for the introduction of devolution in Northern Ireland

Date Event

1968 Civil Rights Movement starts in Ulster. Street violence eruptsbetween Protestants and Catholics (dawn of ‘The Troubles’)

1972 Most notorious explosion of violence in the history of TheTroubles, ‘Bloody Sunday’, takes place in Northern Ireland,culminating at the Bogside, a Catholic ghetto in Londonderry

1972 Northern Ireland constitution, prime minister and Parliament suspended for a year due to escalating violence

November 1985 The Anglo-Irish Agreement (offi cially, ‘The HillsboroughAgreement’) is signed by Britain and Ireland. It recognizes that any constitutional change in Northern Ireland can only come about with the agreement of its occupants through referendum.

November 1992 Inconclusive end to talks fl owing from Anglo-Irish Agreement

December 1993 UK Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach, AlbertReynolds, issue a Joint Declaration from 10 Downing Street (‘The Downing Street Declaration’), setting out constitutional principles and political realities to safeguard the interests of bothProtestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Its key principle is that, in future, participation in discussions about the government of Northern Ireland should be restricted to parties committed to ‘exclusively peaceful means’

31 August 1994 IRA announces its fi rst ceasefi re, describing it as a ‘completecessation of military operations’

13 October 1994 Combined Loyalist Military Command does likewise

February 1995 British and Irish governments launch A New Framework forAccountable Government in Northern Ireland, which outlinesproposals for new democratic institutions

February 1996 The Docklands bomb brings the IRA ceasefi re to an end

June 1996 Former US Senator George Mitchell convenes a Northern Ireland Forum at which he outlines six so-called ‘Mitchell Principles’ for moves towards peace. Sinn Féin excluded until the IRA formally readopts its ceasefi re. The process wobbles again briefl y, follow-ing two further IRA bomb explosions, in Manchester city centre and County Antrim

July 1997 Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and vice-president Martin McGuinness elected as Westminster MPs, and IRA announces resumption of its ceasefi re. An international commission on decommissioning is set up under the auspices of the Canadian General, John de Chastelain, to oversee the process

September 1997 Sinn Féin signs up to Mitchell Principles and multiparty talks start at Stormont. After being switched to Lancaster House in London, a deadline of 9 April 1998 is set for agreement

1998 (Good Friday) The Good Friday Agreement published, as the basis for dual referenda on devolution in Northern and Southern Ireland. Con-stitutionally, the way was paved with the passage of the Northern Ireland (Elections) Act 1998 and a 19th Amendment to the Irish Constitution (renouncing Eire’s claim on the north)



(continued)

Date Event

22 May 1998 Referendum of the whole of Ireland produces a 94 per cent majority in favour of devolved government among residents of Eire and a 71 per cent ‘yes’ vote in Northern Ireland

25 June 1998 First elections for Northern Ireland Assembly see the Ulster Unionist Party gaining the most seats (28), with the Social Demo-cratic and Labour Party coming second (24)

1 July 1998 New assembly meets for the fi rst time and Northern Ireland Sec-retary Mo Mowlam appoints Lord Alderdice as the country’s fi rst Presiding Offi cer. David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, is elected as First Minister Designate and Seamus Mallon (deputy leader of the Party) becomes his designated deputy. At least three Nationalist and three designated Unionists are intended to be included in government under part of the devolu-tion deal known as the ‘d’Hondt procedure’, a formula named after the Belgian, Victor d’Hondt, whereby each party is allocated seats on a ‘largest average’ basis relating to the number of votes that they receive

15 August 1998 Twenty-nine people die in Omagh bomb planted by IRA splinter group, the ‘Real IRA’. New ceasefi res announced 1998 (3 Sept); President Clinton delivers address in Belfast calling for peace

29 November 1999 The d’Hondt procedure is used to allocate seats in the Assembly, with the largest party given fi rst ministerial nomination, followed by second largest, until all ten portfolios are fi lled

1 December 1999 Direct rule of Northern Ireland from Westminster formally comes to an end with the Queen’s signing of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. New Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson remarks wryly that he is pleased to be losing his authority over the prov-ince so soon after taking the post

2 December 1999 Anglo-Irish Agreement is replaced by the British-Irish Agreement, which formally creates the North-South Ministerial Council and British-Irish Ministerial Council envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement. On the same day, the Irish Parliament replaces Arts 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, thereby formally abandoning Eire’s historic claim to hegemony over Northern Ireland, and IRA appoints an ‘interlocutor’ to liaise with General de Chastelain and the recently created international decommissioning body

11 February 2000 Assembly is suspended over continuing disagreement over the pace of the terrorists’ decommissioning of their weapons. UK government passes swift legislation to enable this to happen in eff ort to avoid Mr Trimble’s tendering his resignation as First Minister (he had already handed over his post-dated resignation as a form of ‘guarantee’ to the Unionists of his determination to ensure full IRA decommissioning took place)

30 May 2000 Renewed period of direct rule from Westminster ends as gradual movement occurs on decommissioning and Unionists approve Mr Trimble’s return to his chair on executive

2001 Mr Trimble fi nally resigns from executive, having failed to secure the tangible proof of IRA decommissioning on which the Union-ists were insisting and following months of explosions in London. UK government gives the two sides until 6 August to respond to a new implementation plan



Ironically, the level of power devolved to the province is much more

limited than that of Scotland. As is Wales, Northern Ireland is currently

restricted to:

• determining some budgetary priorities in education, health, etc.;

• funding, directing, and appointing managers of its National Health

Service (NHS) bodies;

• administering any EU structural funds;

• determining the content of its version of the National Curriculum.

As with the Welsh Executive, however, the Northern Ireland administration

is in discussions with the government about the possibility of extending its

devolved powers to other, as yet unspecifi ed, areas in the near future.

Date Event

6 August 2001 General de Chastelain announces his International Commission on Decommissioning is satisfi ed with new methods proposed by the IRA for verifying decommissioning

11 August 2001 After a further—one-day—suspension, the Assembly is fi nally restored and a deadline for the next election of the fi rst minister and deputy fi rst minister is set at 22 September

22 October 2001 Gerry Adams asks the IRA to begin decommissioning and the process fi nally begins the following day

6 November 2001 Mr Trimble is re-elected as fi rst minister by a narrow majority from Unionists, but a decisive vote by Nationalists

14 October 2002 Northern Ireland Secretary again forced to suspend both the Assembly and the executive over renewed controversy surround-ing the transparency of the decommissioning process

December 2003 New Assembly elections give largest number of seats (30) to the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, followed by the Ulster Unionist Party (27) and, close behind, Sinn Féin (24), with only 18 for the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party

August 2005 IRA announces fi nal cessation of hostilities in its long-running armed confl ict. Talks resume to reinstate devolution

March 2007 After further elections in Northern Ireland and power-sharing talks, an agreement is fi nally struck to restore devolution

April 2007 The Loyalist Volunteer Force announces that it is ceasing to be a paramilitary outfi t and will commit to peace

May 2007 Power-sharing restarts in the Assembly



Moves towards devolution in EnglandThe increasing autonomy given to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland has

led to growing demands from some quarters for the major English regions

outside London to be given similar powers to determine their own affairs.

Oddly enough, tentative moves towards an embryonic English regional

devolution actually emerged under the Tories, when John Major set up a

series of regional offi ces manned by civil servants seconded from the main

spending departments at Whitehall. As befi tted these nine ‘Government Of-

fi ces of the Regions’, however, their role was largely administrative and

there were no moves to extend the remit of this ‘devolved’ power to embrace

any form of elected government.

When Labour returned to power in 1997, however, steps were taken to

introduce the idea of some form of elected regional authorities by then Dep-

uty Prime Minister John Prescott’s so-called ‘super-ministry’: the (in the

end) short-lived Department for the Environment, Local Government and

the Regions. The path towards regional devolution took the course outlined

in Table 1.12, while that of the eight appointed ‘regional assemblies’ intro-

duced to pave the way for elections is outlined in Table 1.13.

In the event, in November 2004, the North East Regional Assembly was

the only one actually to hold its local referendum on the designated date—a

postal-only ballot that proved hugely controversial, in the wake of allega-

tions of corruption in similar-style votes for Birmingham City Council in the

months preceding it. The region voted decisively against the introduction of

an elected assembly—by a margin of 78 to 22 per cent—throwing regional

devolution into turmoil. Local people appeared not to want yet another tier

of government, and to be unclear about the tangible benefi ts and powers

that would have derived from such a body. Although chastened at the time,

Mr Prescott vowed to resurrect the regional plan at a later date and it was

recently mooted again by Hazel Blears, when Gordon Brown made her Sec-

retary of State for Communities in his fi rst Cabinet.



Table 1.13 The regional assemblies set up by the Labour government

Assembly Website

East Midlands Regional Assembly www.eastmidlandsassembly.org.uk

East of England Regional Assembly www.eelgc.gov.uk

North East Assembly www.northeastassembly.org.uk

North West Regional Assembly www.nwra.gov.uk

South East England Regional Assembly www.southeast-ra.gov.uk

South West Regional Assembly www.southwest-ra.gov.uk

West Midlands Regional Assembly www.wmra.gov.uk

Yorkshire and Humber Assembly www.yhassembly.gov.uk

Date Event

1 April 1999 Regional development agencies (RDAs) are created as a result of the pas-sage of the White Paper Building Partnerships for Prosperity and the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 in the following eight English regions: the East Midlands; East of England; North East; North West; South East; South West; West Midlands; Yorkshire and Humber. They are statutory organiza-tions responsible for promoting economic development and regeneration, business effi ciency, employment, and sustainable development. Regional chambers are also established, which the RDAs are to consult when they draw up strategies covering their areas. Despite their titles, members are not directly elected, but appointed by John Prescott, with 70 per cent of their members drawn from local authorities, and 30 per cent from bodies such as the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Trades Union Congress (TUC), and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC)

May 2002 Government publishes its long-awaited regional government White Paper, entitled Your Region, Your Choice—Revitalizing the English Regions. It outlines proposals for directly elected regional assemblies, but immediately provokes criticism from various interest groups, because analysis of its small print suggests that the public will not be consulted on whether there should be regional assemblies to represent them ‘full stop’—but merely on whether or not their members should be elected. Some are suspicious that the govern-ment wants to undermine the authority of local councils by setting up more easily controlled assemblies

May 2002–8 May 2003

Subsequent Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill receives Royal Assent. This enables designated English regions to hold referenda to allow them to adopt elected assemblies.

22 July 2004 Government publishes Draft Regional Assemblies Bill, explaining the proposed roles and powers of the new regional assemblies. Initial referen-dum date set for each region of 4 November. It outlines a tripartite role for these assemblies. They are given responsibility to promote economic and social development, and to protect the environment. To this end, they will be allowed to form their own companies, foster public–private partnerships, and acquire and dispose of land, buildings, and other property

Table 1.12 Timeline for the establishment of English regional assemblies



Further reading

Cannon, J. and Griffi ths, R. (1998) The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monar-

chy, Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Full-colour history of the British monarchy, from

King Egbert to Elizabeth Windsor, including an examination of the social and

cultural roles of the monarchy in modern Britain.

Hardman, R. (2007) Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work, London: Ebury Press. Popu-

list, but informative, companion book to the BBC series of the same name, giv-

ing insights into the day-to-day reality of how the monarchy works—covering

everything from Privy Council meetings, to how the Queen pays her bills.

Harrison, K. and Boyd, T. (2006) The Changing Constitution, Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press. Comprehensive examination of the origins and history of the

British constitution, with particular emphasis placed on recent and upcom-

ing reforms, including devolution and the introduction of a new independent

Supreme Court.

Hazell, R. and Rawlings, R. (2007) Devolution, Law Making and the Constitution, Exeter:

Imprint Academic. Detailed look at the mechanics of lawmaking through the

devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Leach, R., Coxall, B., and Robins, L. (2006) British Politics, London: Palgrave Macmil-

lan. Excellent guide to the nuts and bolts of contemporary British political insti-

tutions and processes at local, regional, national, and international levels.

Moran, M. (2006) Politics and Governance in the UK, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Forward-looking textbook focusing on British politics in the early years of the

twenty-fi rst century, and the new and evolving forces at work in local, regional,

national, and international governance in an increasingly globalized world.

Review questions

1. Outline the main sources and principles of the British constitution. What are the

advantages and disadvantages of an unwritten constitution?

2. What is meant by the principle of ‘separation of powers’ and to what extent does

it work in practice in the UK?

3. What are the main roles and powers of the British monarch—notional and act-

ual—and how is the Royal Family funded?

4. Given that royal sovereignty has been superseded by parliamentary sovereignty,

what are the arguments for retaining the British monarchy?

5. Is there an ‘answer’ to the West Lothian Question?



Online resource centre

www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/MorrisonVisit the Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book for web links and

regular updates.


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